Noosa Tri Another Opportunity For Gosens

Noosa Tri Another Opportunity For Gosens

There are very few people with a more diverse resume than motivational speaker, adventurer, athlete, pilot, Paralympian, mountaineer, dancer, triathlete and chocolatier, Gerrard Gosens.

3 November, 2017

There are very few people with a more diverse resume than motivational speaker, adventurer, athlete, pilot, Paralympian, mountaineer, dancer, triathlete and chocolatier, Gerrard Gosens.

Whether it is climbing Mt Everest, "Dancing with the Stars’, running marathons or creating a quality chocolate in his two Brisbane retail stores, there are literally no limitations in Gerrard’s world. What he has accomplished is outstanding by any standard, even more so when you consider he is congenitally blind.

"It is all about persistence and the opportunity, more than genes. And my wife Heather always says, ‘Don’t ask him, because you know he will say, yes’. I am sort of a yes person."

Gerrard has a strong background in athletics competing in three Paralympic Games and six World Championships in events ranging from 5,000m to the marathon. Triathlon really wasn’t on his radar until one day he found himself in the pool recovering from a twisted knee and an opportunity presented itself. In his typical style Gerrard said, ‘Yes’ and since then has embraced triathlon with all his might.

"I used to hate swimming because it is boring and I was swimming up and down and one of the guys in the lane said, ‘Have you ever done a triathlon?’ and asked if I wanted to do one with him. I said ‘Okay’ and that was 20 months ago. I did the Luke Harrop Memorial and it went from there."

Last year Gerrard made his Noosa Triathlon debut and not one to do anything by halves, he quickly followed it up with the Edmonton World Cup, qualified for the ITU World Championships in Rotterdam and is now focussed on competing in triathlon in the PTVI class at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

Gerrard makes a welcome return to Noosa this year with his guide, Ultraman winner David Kalinowski, and the pair are in town for a hit out before they embark on yet another challenge. To compete in IRONMAN Western Australia in December and attempt to break the unofficial world record for a blind athlete of 10:44:37 set by John Domandl at Busselton in 2016.

"My focus is now totally on triathlon and the pathway which has allowed me to go from being nothing in the world of triathlon to competing in the World Championships in Rotterdam in 20 months. Rotterdam was a major highlight this year but now my focus is on IRONMAN Western Australia and I have been training twice a day, every day."

Gerrard is quick to remind us that his achievements are about the team effort and not about one individual. He is keen to see an increased number of sighted athletes making themselves available to work with vision impaired athletes.

"I think it is important to appreciate that triathlon or IRONMAN or whatever is about the teamwork and there is an immense trust factor. Whether you are out there on the bike or on the road running, or climbing Everest, trust is the number one thing. Ultimately everything is about team work and the trust builds up so you work efficiently together. Then it becomes second nature."

"I am fortunate to have had a lot of good guide runners in my time like Pat Carroll and Steve Moneghetti and then in the late 90s I had the luxury of having Sebastian Coe as a guide in one of my races. Then I have also had less high profile guides to do a recovery run with or someone really good at reps or speed work. You could have a guide for every different situation and I am constantly looking for them."

"We have been talking to Craig Alexander about possibly being a guide next year for Yokohama and the Gold Coast ITU World Champs and then lead onto Tokyo 2020. That would not only help me but it brings the awareness to prospective guides who may be on the borderline of becoming pro but don’t have the time or ability or the finances to go there. They might think ‘What else can I do? I might become a guide’. Raising the profile would help because it is about having the resources there for other people who are blind or have low vision to actually get out there and give it a go."

"There is a lot in it for the guide as much as the athlete. For example when I go to Noosa or to Busselton, it is not Gerrard Gosens aiming to break the world record, it is the team of David and Gerrard. It is not about me, it is about the teamwork and we need each other to break the world record," he said.

Helping fuel Gerrard’s appetite for adventure and competition is his intense passion for eating and making quality chocolate.

"Competing for Australia in sport got me into chocolate because when you are travelling around the world as a person who is totally blind, you don’t have the luxury of walking into a gift store and saying that looks like a pretty good gift, I might get that for my wife or family member."

"Chocolate was always a great thing, a great reward particularly when you are doing distance work. I developed an awareness and a taste for chocolate. Once again an opportunity came up and here I am a chocolatier with a couple of stores in the Brisbane CBD. The funny thing is that I now teach people how to cook. I have sighted people come into the store and they get taught by a blind person how they make chocolate," he laughed.